Album Reviews

October 27, 1985|By Stephen Wigler, Sentinel Music Critic

(excellent) J.S. Bach, Mass in B Minor, performed by sopranos Emma Kirkby and Emily Van Evera, altos Panito Iconomu, Christian Immler and Michale Kilian, tenor Rogers Covey-Crump and bass David Thomas, the Taverner Consort and the Taverner Players, Andrew Parrott conducting (EMI-Angel DSB-3975): A few years ago there was a dramatic challenge to conventional ideas about how Bach's choral works, of which the the B Minor Mass is perhaps the greatest, were performed in Bach's lifetime.

In a controversial scholarly article and then in an equally controversial 1983 recording on the Nonesuch label, conductor Joshua Rifkin argued that the evidence suggested that normally Bach wrote simply for a small group of singers, usually no more than four, who took the choral as well as solo parts.

In this new recording of the B Minor Mass, Parrott subscribes to most of Rifkin's ideas and uses Rifkin's edition of the score. But there are some significant differences.

Historical records show that there were occasions on which Bach had larger choral forces available to him. Because of the great scale of the Mass, Parrott has chosen to perform the choruses with this fact in mind. In some of the choruses, there are two voices per part and in the Sanctus he uses a maximum of 12 singers.

Still, for those who don't know the earlier Rifkin recording, this recording may come as something of a shock. The massive choral grandeur to which most listeners are accustomed is missing, and the lack of choral weight means that contrasts are less dramatic. Nevertheless, this is an exhilarating performance.

(good) Frederick Chopin, Ballades Nos. 1-4 and the Sonata No. 2 in B-flat Minor (Funeral March), performed by pianist Andrei Gavrilov (EMI-Angel DS- 37669): Anyone who attended Gavrilov's sensational Orlando recital last spring, in which he performed all of these pieces, will want to own this record.

I was knocked off my feet when I heard Gavrilov perform these works in person; listening to them in the less electric atmosphere of my living room, I have developed some reservations.

Most of them concern the performance of the sonata. Gavrilov possesses a huge, larger-than-life personality with a dynamic range and technical equipment to match. Unfortunately, this produces a reading that is, by turns, exciting, self-indulgent and petulant-sounding.

Gavrilov is all too eager to make dazzling contrasts in tempos and dynamics. In the second movement scherzo, for example, he slows down in the trio to milk every note of its pathos. One can't help but suspect that he does this only to make the return of the outer section's obsessive rhythms even more manic and impressive in their drive.

The problem is that he slights the sonata's architecture. The valedictory repose of the slow section in the succeeding movement's funeral march seems too anticipated to be truly effective.

This imperial-minded artist is also not above tampering with the text. The chattering unisons of the final movement are clearly marked sotto voce. Gavrilov plays this movement with unrelievedly thunderous fortes, thus suggesting, instead of a wind whistling about a grave, a storm of hurricane force. Nevertheless, Gavrilov's playing never fails to thrill, and I would not like to be without this record.

He is more consistently successful in the Ballades. The G Minor Ballade receives a heroic and passionate performance in the Horowitz mold, and the F Major Ballade works up a storm that calls to mind Richter at his incendiary best. While the performance of the A-flat Ballade is too grand to suit the charm of the music, the F Minor Ballade is terrifically exciting. Gavrilov may miss the pathos and the sense of ecstatic longing that other pianists have brought to this music, but he moves relentlessly to a fearless and thrilling conquest of the coda.